BEC Can’t Afford To Keep Lights On

The Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) poor financial status has left the state-owned company between a rock and a hard place, according to its chairman Michael Moss.

He said BEC’s dwindling finances have left the corporation unable to maintain the equipment that generates energy on a regular basis over the years, and unable to afford the tools to repair the now dilapidated machinery without securing special loans.

Moss said the persistent outages experienced by BEC’s customers are linked to the corporation’s inability to properly maintain its equipment. Over the past few weeks some Bahamians have found themselves plunged into darkness on a consistent basis as a result of load shedding. The most recent outage occurred Tuesday night.

“Because of the lack of funding the corporation fell behind in payments to some of its suppliers, and those suppliers now require the corporation to pay in advance for services. But in regard to the short term, we believe we have the situation pretty much under control. However, there has to be a longer-term solution where we can restore confidence with our suppliers and we can return to dealing with business in a more business-like fashion, where we can have credit and pay for services once the services have been rendered, as opposed to paying for those services in advance as it taking place today.”

Moss said it would take up to two years before the corporation is on stable footing: “We projected it would [take] that time for the corporation to be where it used to be in its glory days,” he added.